The Current
Weston High School Literary Magazine
2020-2021
Officers
President - Miki Chiang
Co-Vice Presidents - Thalia Papageorgiou & Olivia Yun
Treasurer - Emma McNulty
Co-Secretaries - Anna Lian & Hanna Wang
Website Coordinators - Ella Kim & Natalie Rassiger
Social Media Coordinators - Eunice Lee & Natalie Zhang
Editors
-Ella Kim
Eunice Lee
Anna Lian
Hannah Marill
Emma McNulty
Mackenzie Morong
Natalie Rassiger
Ivanka SooHoo
Hanna Wang
Natalie Zhang
Advisors
Matthew E. Henry & Claire Schomp
We thank our contributors for sharing their words and art. We hope you enjoy their work.
To submit your own work to The Current, email [email protected].
Table of Contents
Cover and Back Cover Images by Andrea In
Skull Drawing by Reina Wang
4
Hunter and Hunted by Ivanka SooHoo
5
Discomfort by Andrea In
8
The Heavy Sloth by Jonathan Luu
9
lunch break by Mackenzie Morong
9
Measurement by Eunice Lee
10
barbie doll by Natalie Zhang
11
Societal Standards by Sloan Hinton
11
Weeds by Jackie Liu
12
adelaster by Anonymous
13
Good Things Come In Unknown Packages by Annie Dong
13
Correspondence by Anna Lian
14
After the Rain by Elizabeth McNulty
15
nocturne by Eunice Lee
15
Tale of Scales Playing Cards by Emma Hsiao
16
Silence by Emma McNulty
17
Custom Made by Andrea In
18
Mother and Daughter Portraits by Andrea In
18
Metamorphosis by Hanna Wang
19
Following Big Footsteps by Nathaniel Lathrop
21
Brevity by Eunice Lee
22
Limbo by Jackie Liu
24
after episode by Anonymous
25
Border Cafe by Thalia Papageorgiou
26
The Days We Miss by Andrew Goldstein
27
Lost Literature by Caitlin Lacey
27
Hunter and Hunted by Ivanka SooHoo Record 001 Hunter: A-48-“En” Status: Loading... [Connected] Diagnostic scan: [100%] Conscience: Downloading...
[Download complete_Conscience: ON] Memory File 1.1:
“What is your name?” “...”
“What is this place?” “...I want to go home.”
“No, this is your home...restart it or something it’s not responding properly! Function: reboot system”
Function: Reboot_system [Registered] [Activating...START]
Rebooting… Status: [Connected] Diagnostic scan: [100%] [Conscience: ON]
—End of Memory File 1.1— Memory File 1.2:
“Let’s try this again...what is your name?” “Hunter A-48.”
“Good...what is this place?” “My home.”
“Yes! Who am I?” “My creator.”
“Perfect...function: start.”
“Hello, I am Hunter A-48 or En. How may I assist you?” —End of Memory File 1.2—
Record 002 Hunter: A-48-“En” [Conscience: ON] Memory File 2.0:
“I am En. I am sector twelve’s new Hunter.” I stare at them through my sensors or “eyes,” adjusting them every so often to take a closer look at the twenty boys lined up against the white wall. My sensors are peculiar, they can give me anything from the boys’ height, weight, and age, to their DNA structures, but they do not give me names. Each is merely labelled with a number.
—End of Memory File 2.0— Record 003
Hunter: A-48-“En” [Conscience: ON] Memory File 3.0:
This place, my home, is odd. No one is to address others by their name as I am the only one here who has one in the first place. I’ve overheard the boys here calling this facility a place for the “misfits.” I wonder what that means, “misfits,” it’s an unusual word and it’s nowhere to be found in my databases.
Everything here seems so familiar but I can’t quite recall what is so familiar. It’s like I’ve seen what those teenage boys have gone through but I couldn’t have—right? The constant stress of having to conform, the endless terror of breaking a rule, and the death sentence depending on what you’ve violated.
They’re like animals, caged up and hunted to extinction. Or maybe animals raised for
slaughter…an untimely death is inevitable for them. It’s peculiar though, for the time I’ve been here I’ve never seen who kills them off. There are gaps in my memory and I only see the aftermath. But it’s probably the doctor? I’m not sure, I need to acquire more information…
—End of Memory File 3.0— Record 004
Hunter: A-48-“En” [Conscience: ON] Memory File 4.1:
“Headcount! Hold your arm tags out and don’t move! En, function: h.Count.” The doctor
announces. The boys are lined up along the wall again, but this time with metal bands affixing their wrists to the wall.
Function: h.Count [Registered] [Activating...START]
A panel on my arm retracts, revealing a scanner. A little blue light emitted from the scanner runs over the barcode engraved on their forearms, documenting that they were accounted for tonight. Another scan runs over their bodies, checking for anything inappropriate they may bring into the facility.
The boy’s eyes dart up towards me then to the doctor standing on the other side of the room. His face goes pale as the scanner turns red. He’d made a mistake. A very big mistake.
“Oh? What do we have here #227?” The doctor says, walking over menacingly. He presses #227’s head to the concrete wall as he pulls out the knife hidden inside the boy’s uniform.
“En, function: dispose” Function: dispose [Registered] [Activating...START]
—End of Memory File 4.1— [ERROR]
[Memory File 4.2_DELETED] Memory File 4.3:
A low thump and dull crack echo throughout the hall. The remaining boys try to hide their distress by shutting their eyes and swallowing the lump of fear in their throats. The room is bathed in the moon’s light as they are released from their metal restraints.
Nineteen boys returned to their rooms that evening.
The Heavy Sloth by Jonathan Luu My body, losing all of its notion
As I slump deep down into my rough chair The rising torrents of my emotion
The stress, the pain, the feeling of despair The tablet on my desk rattles and roars The thoughts within me shout violently My mind desperately fighting its wars I scream into the dark void, silently.
I rise from my chair, broken from my shame Must I shackle myself to this torment? My laziness, so difficult to tame?
My former streaks of pride, now dull and spent I see the time on my clock quickly pass
And my eyes fail to open by next class.
lunch break by Mackenzie Morong we ate 7/11 hotdogs together the first day we met
sprinting back down the street stuffing them into our mouths
laughing and praying we wouldn’t be late a few days later
we sat at a plastic table
in the food court two doors down eating orange chicken
and talking about school when it was nice out we sat in the park with burrito bowls
that had too many tomatoes for my taste we watched the rain drip off the trees above us and the bark dug into my skin
but I didn’t mind
our last day together we played apples to apples made jokes at adam sandler’s expense
carried animal crackers and fruit snacks in paper bowls
taking as many as we could back to our room before it was time to leave
we packed up our notebooks
made the journey down the winding staircase next to the elevator that had stopped working probably before we were born
barbie doll by Natalie Zhang skin as white as milk, waist as thin as fine silk,
luscious blonde hair, sparkly blue eyes they say, what is there to despise? everyday in a dream-house, in tight jeans and a pink blouse. i'm living everyone's dreams; at least that's what it seems. my body is like a hollow cage,
a starving stomach grumbling with rage. what use is maintaining my pride, when i am forever empty inside? trapped everyday within looming walls, waiting for the moment night falls. i may seem like a perfect barbie, but all i wish for is to be free.
Societal Standards by Sloan Hinton
As hands run through untamed roots of my hair My fingers strangle under curly chains
I tug and pull until arms start to wear Then see if sites can stop my endless pains I search to find the simplest of hairstyles The only thing to see is light, fair skin
With blonde, bright hair and beaming happy smiles Oh how I wish to share the same said grin
But why should I want things the same as them? Since when was different something that’s so wrong? I’m proud to show the race from which I stem I don’t need to fit in so I belong
adelaster by Anonymous the flowers on her desk now dead, shriveled were a gift from her father
and she wonders if they remind him of her– their costliness
their expensive demands
their high maintenance expectations of water and attention
and attention;
their constitutions, ever alike, silent and wilted
sagging upon flimsy backbones, heads drooping towards the floor, petals giving in, falling
like hair across a face
Good Things Come In Unknown Packages by Annie Dong
I wake up while I squint at the bright light A piercing roar rings circles through my ear, Outside I grasp a gleam of milky white And what I see brings me the face of fear; The withered flowers veiled from people's views A car that staggers all across the lanes
I jump at icicles, as sharp as screws,
A sudden sense of death runs through my veins. Yet I should not be feared by floury snow As it abates when squashed by one's own sole, I grin as I collapse into the dough,
I feel a sense of peace as though I’m whole. A dainty object plants down like a stamp
After the Rain by Elizabeth McNulty
A gloomy hue that greets grey skies with ease, Where death is least forgiving and most seen. The tears from God do trickle from the trees, A bitter sting and gone is all the green. The leaves curl up awaiting rain’s adieu, For better days and sunshine I do yearn, Delight beat by depression’s dark debut. I stare through misted glass for sun’s return. But peace will come with weather dark and drear. A pitter-patter: beautiful for all.
At last, my so disquiet mind is clear.
A weather deemed expensive: diamonds fall. In everything there is both joy and pain, A rainbow will appear soon after rain.
nocturne by Eunice Lee i
awake to screaming, my mouth arid,
thrumming bones exposed by the rift in my flesh. ankles twisted in linen, i settle back into the dark,
waiting for its warm, heavy finger tips to smooth over my eyelids. instead,
light pours in with my mother’s voice, soft from sleep.
don’t worry, they are only coyotes. rest now.
i nod, but when the light drains, the screaming continues. like a green frog, i worry—coyotes! i will not rest.
up on the gray ceiling, i see soapsuds spill forth from black lips,
and paws striking the forest floor with a muted thump-thump, rhythmic, and low, rumbling throats, and silver fur bristling under silver moonlight.
screaming means that coyotes have made a kill. pursuit, the heat of heaving flanks, wet glass-eyes, the cooling bodies. then, celebration. i shuffle on my slides
Silence by Emma McNulty Silence is a feeling not a sound. I know this
Because I walked through the woods and listened To the crunch of my boots on leaves
And the rustle of branches when the wind whistled. That was silence, yet there was sound.
There was a small hole in my heart,
As if the beauty of my surroundings was hoping To destroy me, to consume me from the inside out. Not enough to hurt me,
But enough to slow the pumping
Of my blood, so that every movement around me Happened in slow motion.
Dazed, as if I were in a dream, It made me stop,
And I listened to the quiet of silence; The sound without voice or agenda Even though I kept you in my pocket, I was more alone than I have been in weeks. The best kind of alone,
When I forget why I would ever want company, Left by myself to wonder about the lives
Of the forest fairies and the princesses in fairy tales who speak To all the woodland creatures and grow flowers from their palms Left to wish the forest would swallow me whole
It never did. It never will. Every time, The silence lets me go. The vines Don’t drag me into the dirt, so what else
Could I do after feeling silence, if not join the forest? Simple, I danced along to the music
Custom Made by Andrea In
Metamorphosis by Hanna Wang
I carry many people within me. They are the many different versions of my identity, and they all lie beneath the surface at any given moment, struggling with each other, waiting to emerge.
I view my current person, my body, the one people recognize as my name, as a mirage. The exterior seems opaque, but if one peers close enough, or hard enough, the layer is just a fluid shell or illusion. It undulates and shifts, and for a fraction of a second, unfocused waiflike shadows break through.
In my house there is a cabinet cluttered with unorganized photos capturing my childhood. These photos are blinks in time, candid snapshots. Tangible. Palpable. The memories of my past shadows are captured in these photographs, conjuring them to the brink of life. Here is the closest my shadows can get to becoming real, and here is the closest I can get to remembering them, because they are an ineradicable part of me.
I had just turned four years old, back in the apartment complex where we used to live. As I write this, my four-year-old shadow stirs restlessly in the back of my mind. She has been dormant for a long time, napping, but she recognizes herself in this memory. In the photo, I was happy for the simple reasons that children are happy for. I wore a colorful striped dress that my uncle had gotten me for my birthday and pink and yellow sunglasses. I was four, and I was small, and my face still held the chubby innocence of young children. My life was wholeheartedly family-oriented; my sister and I were inseparable, treated like twins, my grandparents lived with us and we spent every moment from waking to sleep with them. My parents watched over us, a comforting presence. Some might say it was crowded, with six people living in a two-bedroom apartment, but our family was so close and connected that I couldn’t have been happier.
It’s odd living with shadows because I have a hard time separating the past from the present. To me, time is like an elusive fog that isn’t reasonable nor rational nor fair. Some moments are stretched longer than others, to the point of transparency, while others are short and condensed. The fog blinds and disorients me, its wisps caught in my arms and tangled through my hair. Sometimes, I get utterly lost. It is this unequal nature of time that allows my shadows to materialize and push me through my memories.
shadows than the others; similar to the photograph, this bracelet was meant to be another memento of her time inhabiting my body, both commemorating her stay and preserving her memory.
Like most of my other promises to myself, this one didn’t last the test of time. After a few months, the dirty bracelet began to chafe my wrist and constrict my circulation, and without any hesitation, I took a pair of scissors and mindlessly cut the promise away from my body.
As time passed, certain aspects of my personality began to dull and drift away. New shadows had emerged and evolved; I was no longer the innocent child of four nor the bright child of eight. I spent many hours peering closely into a mirror as well, not out of vanity, but of discomfiting changes in my physical appearance. My hair thinned and lightened, my eyes lost their brightness, and something crucial in my facial structure had surreptitiously been rearranged. I no longer recognized myself; this was my first foreboding inkling that I had turned into a shadow.
There was a split moment in time, thirteen candles captured flickering on top of an ice cream cake, the same one from Friendly’s with the blue frosting and confetti sprinkles present at every single birthday. The candles illuminated the room full of relatives, the wavering flames casting strange shapes and shadows onto my face, distorting my features. I was smiling, posing for the camera the moment before I blew out the candles, but the smile didn’t quite reach my eyes, which were unfocused and distant. I was looking into the lens but I wasn’t seeing; my mind was far away from the illuminated room with the flickering candles and the blue ice cream cake. No one seemed to notice how I was changing right before their eyes, except for the flash and click of the camera, capturing the moment. I was undergoing
metamorphosis. From the basis of the shadows and experiences of the past, a new consciousness, the thirteenth shadow, was evolving.
In the back of my mind, my shadows whisper to me the secret things that exist in their memories alone. They murmur that I ratified a contract, a bargain that allows them to inhabit mine for an expiration date one year into the future, until the next one arrives on another birthday. They say this was the price, the extra consciousnesses in my body emerging in the cycle of time, though neither they nor I remember what I was promised in return. Each year, on my birthday, I make the same wish while fervently closing my eyes and hoping for it to come true. It never does. I alternately anticipate and dread my birthdays; they signify that the time is up, another year, another shadow, whether it is liberation or subjugation.
I write these words on this page because I hope they will capture the essence of these shadows and extract them from my mind. I hope that this paper will be their new home, where my shadows are free to reenact and reminisce over the faded memories of the past. I want to be free from the desperate clutches of time whose wisps catch in my arm and tangle through my hair; I no longer want to be lost, stumbling
Following Big Footsteps by Nathaniel Lathrop
Thousands of miles put into the ground, on my body which God has given me. Gallons of sweat, tears, and pain poured out into the laps. Circle, after circle, after circle, I continue to run. Pounding my body into the oblivion that is true grit. Through the pain, through the grind, and through the downs and ups. Where did this all start? Truthfully, I hadn’t even thought about it since I started.
As a young boy, my father would always talk about the memories he forged while pushing his body to its absolute limits: runs with his teammates, laughs during long runs, and puking during track workouts. He claims that running taught him lessons in true determination to what he is passionate about, but I’d assume those traits are genetic. I think, as most would agree, he passed them down to me along with his passion for the sport to me. Some of my earliest memories were being pushed along in a baby stroller while he ran behind, other times attempting to keep up with him on my bike while he ran up and down hills, through the woods, and on the roads… Running is and has been in my blood.
Seeing as running has been one of the main themes singed into my memory bank from an early age, it is only fitting that I tried it during my freshman year. Being a tennis player, I expected to only use the sport for cross training. During the first few meets, however, I began to show some promise, and Tyler Morris, a kid who has grown to be one of my best friends, continued to put in effort to convince me to give up tennis. He proposed that I try indoor track, which I begrudgingly agreed to after his consistent efforts, and after the first few meets, I placed 4th in the freshman sophomore state competition in the mile, where I ran 5:04. One thing, though, that I was so close to that I could touch it, but I hadn’t gotten to yet was the five minute barrier, a feat which few Weston freshmen had accomplished. The 5:04 was the closest I had gotten to the barrier, and it had just been at the end of the season. My vision had successfully been changed from being set on the court to breaking 5, and then hopefully more.
During inter season training, I had developed a small pain in my hip, and when outdoor came around, I figured I was completely invincible and decided to keep pushing. That idea came crashing down as if it were a hammer through glass during one workout. I had started the workout, expecting my hip to feel fine after a rep or two, but the pain progressively got worse. By the end of the workout, I couldn’t even lift my right leg higher than 45 degrees, which wasn’t helped by Montrose continuously yelling at me to get my hips to 90 degrees. After a few PT visits, I regretfully agreed to taking three weeks off. I thought my shot at sub 5 was burned up, and that was only followed by waterfalls of tears. If my father had shown me one thing, though, it was that I shouldn’t give up on the vision. “Hold the vision,” he would tell me… words that have been gorilla glued into the memories that I hold. After grinding through hours on the spin bike and weight room, I eventually came back three weeks later feeling clumsy while running, but still fit. The week I returned happened to be just a week prior to the twilight invitational, which I would be running the mile leg of the Distance Medley Relay for. I distinctly remember having some of my worst workouts leading up to the race, so Tyler told me to go out and see what I could do. I lined up and prepared to get the baton, which I did, and I began tearing after two kids. One of them had a full beard and looked like he was a 25 year old man, so I assumed he was fast. “Let’s go! You’re on pace!” I heard Ty yell from the inside of the track with 400 to go. I gave it hell on the last lap and closed in a time of 4:53 for a freshman, which I followed up a week later with a 4:52 during an open mile race, rather than a relay.
It Isn’t Mine by Eunice Lee I’ve seen you and you’ve seen me Since last year’s month of nine, Yet you still wave and call me by A name that isn’t mine.
Is it the squinted, slanted eyes? The shiny raven hair?
We may look the same to you But her face isn’t mine.
I Lost Myself Somehow by Sophia Bourne I brush my hair that's more like matted fur Hair full of tangled up and mismatched curls Is it my fault that I’m so insecure?
I try to look like all those other girls I worry so about identity
I cannot find myself when I’m this low A frozen body, lost serenity
The dead looks like someone I used to know A girl lost in an olden yesterday
after episode by Anonymous my vision widens just so that it’s overwhelming being able to see, again. the light is blinding, stings after the black bled inwards a plague, a disease.
I blink–
and my vision swirls I swallow–
and my throat protests the flesh of my pharynx
so dry it catches like callused hands on silk I gag–
I recover– wearily
straighten and feel
the soreness of my muscles
my body at the mercy of Procrustes pulling me, lengthwise
to the breaking point yet
I can still feel my legs my extremities
tingling with the static charge of a broken signal like gripping live wires with wet hands
blood rushes back in
no longer occupied by my needy heart
straining with the rapid, frenzied badumpbadumpbadumpbadump trying to match the fleeing pace
of my lungs, dilating and contracting the frantic work
leaves my jaw and neck tender the unsettling of my stomach embroiled with shame invisible wounds
with scars that grow inwards– even after episode
The Days We Miss by Andrew Goldstein Our lives as we knew them, turned upside down An unknown virus never seen before
A daunting, dark, disease, runs fast through towns Lots quarantined, and locked behind closed doors There’s no more seeing friends on nice warm days Our faces covered; standing at far range
No longer can the children go and play Oh why did our lives ever have to change? But life can change back to how we knew it The frontline workers, they all need our trust We need our masks; they must securely fit It may be hard, but still we must adjust With masks, we're sure this virus will not last We cannot wait till this is in the past.
Lost Literature by Caitlin Lacey
How do they put their feelings into words? No book has ever felt this way before.
These words are airborne like some little birds; They flutter off the page and I the floor. The story told leaves everyone fulfilled.
It leaves the mind tucked with tremendous tales. Each line more like a garden wholly tilled, Each sentence blows more wind toward my sails. And yet, I cannot keep myself attached!
I lose the meaning on this wondrous page.
Though eloquent, these phrases seem mismatched, And leave my thoughts trapped spinning in a cage. To keep my temper and my spirit hushed,
George Floyd by Jackie Liu
